Re: Witness Anonymity

From: Penrose Christopher <penrose@sfc.keio.ac.jp>
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 97 19:51:22 +0900
Fwd Date: Wed, 08 Oct 1997 08:52:26 -0400
Subject: Re: Witness Anonymity
>From: "Clark Hathaway" <earthwrk@doitnow.com>>To: <updates@globalserve.net>>Subject: Witness Anonymity>Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 20:30:40 -0700>>From: Christopher Penrose <penrose@sfc.keio.ac.jp>>>To: updates@globalserve.net>>Subject: Re: Witness Anonymity>>Date: Tue, 7 Oct 97 03:40:30 +0900>>"Re: Witness Anonymity" is starting to look like this week's "thread>>of shame" on the Area 51 mailing list. UFOlogy is showing its best>>face to the world.>Well, wrong area. This is not the Area 51 Mailing List, nor is it the>"Linda List" either.
Please read my two sentences again. I am comparing the Area 51
mailing list and its current fascination with character assassination
to this mailing list, which I have to know the name of in order to
successfully submit a posting. You are quite trigger happy, and you
are missing the target. My text could have been clearer however. I
will comment more below.
>Now I have a question for you.>Why do you insist on tying UFOs to abduction phenomena when there>exists except in one case, absolutely NO evidence of the physical or>circumstantial variety that they have any connection? It is assumed!
You are correct in the final sentence. However, this distinction is
not insisted but rather suggested. Your distinction is one the
general public does not make, incorrect or not; and I was speaking
strictly about how anti-social behavior on UFO updates, and the
behavior found on another "alien phenomenae" mailing lists (e.g. the
Area 51 mailing list), give a relative newcomer such as myself an
extremely negative impression of the communities that are researching
"alien phenomenae". Participants appear to be more fascinated with
interpersonal drama and the obsessive need to feed their ravenous
egos, rather than the exchange of research and ideas. I have a world
of contacts that is quite seperate and distant from this community,
and I speak to these contacts about my perception of this community.
Currently, the perception is very bleak. Perhaps you do not care how
you are perceived.
>From your rhetoric I gather that you know little of the subject>[abduction].
You are correct again. I am interested in hearing your views on the
subject. I am not interested though if they are saturated with vitriol
and malice toward others on the list.
>Finally Chris ... you may not like metaphysics being introduced>into a forum such as this. Too bad.
Straw man. Please continue to discuss metaphysics as I find it
interesting.
You are more interested in galloping into battle than communication.
This is what I criticize, and you have made me into a greater enemy
than I am.
Christopher Penrose
penrose@sfc.keio.ac.jp